Hi,

To answer your questions, no, you cannot. When you use the "Full VM Backup" or "Mapped Full VM Backup" you can only backup ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES. Individual File System backup is only possible if you use VCB. See the attachment.

Secondly, if there are database on the VM you should use a client installed in the VM to perform the backup (using the appropriate Database agent e.g. SQL, EXCHANGE, ORACLE)

The OS level VMDK is always backed up in a vstorage backup call, since it's taking a system snapshot. You can choose to mark a datastore as independent in VMware to ensure it's not included in snapshots triggered by the vstorage API, but that is about as granular as it gets.

Using the APi, and backing up ALL_LOCAL_Drives, backs up all the required and relevant  'configuration' files required for the VM - the .vmx (VM descriptive configuration file, .nvram (VM bios).

Hence, backing up just a single file (see Riaan's note regarding this) is possibly an option with consideration to Tim's note.

Interestingly I've been testing an installation of VMwares Data Recovery appliance in my vsphere infrastructure (Free - conditions apply) and you can choose to backup selective VMDK's. Might not be for production use but interesting to use. Still in version 1.x phase. Interesting where they are going with this.